1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to preparation of electronic documents, and more particularly, to accidental omissions of content during preparation of electronic documents.
2. Description of Background
Application software helps computer users accomplish a wide variety of tasks. One of the most common tasks performed by computer users is document preparation. To this end, document preparation applications are used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and printing) of any sort of printable material. Examples of document preparation applications include word processors, spreadsheets, email clients, web log or “blog” clients, presentation software, desktop publishing software, web development software, text editors, and WYSIWYG editors.
While early document preparation applications required users to enter tag-based markup for document formatting, most modern applications implement a graphical user interface through which the user can electronically create, manipulate, and format documents that may include any arbitrary combination of images, graphics, hyperlinks, and text, the latter being handled with type-setting capability. For example, word processor applications can be used to electronically produce documents such as memos, letters, resumes, research papers, reference documents, and legal briefs. Word processors typically provide convenient text manipulation functions such as automatic generation of tables of contents with section titles and their page numbers, tables of figures with caption titles and their page numbers, bibliography sections with formal citations, footnote numbering, other comments and annotations, embedded images and diagrams, embedded hyperlinks, and internal cross-referencing.
Despite the convenience provided by the capabilities of today's document preparation applications, it is still not uncommon for users to forget to include items such as hyperlinks, images, figures, tables, citations, and embedded content within documents they have electronically drafted, even where the intended inclusion of these items is referenced elsewhere in the documents in which they should have been included. Mistakes of this type often occur where a user indicates the expected presence of certain items by including referencing language such as “see FIG. 7” or “click the following link”, or making reference to a research paper, but then fails to, for example, include the referenced figure, embed the referenced link, or include a citation to the referenced paper in a bibliography section. Omissions like these often go unnoticed and remain in documents at the time a final draft is published, delivered, or otherwise ultimately presented. Accordingly, it desirable to provide a mechanism to help users of document preparation applications identify and correct these types of mistakes.